Tōhoku dialect


The Tōhoku dialect, commonly called 東北弁 Tōhoku-ben, is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in Tōhoku Region, the northeastern region of Honshū. Toward the northern part of Honshū, the Tōhoku dialect can differ so dramatically from standard Japanese that it is sometimes rendered with subtitles in the nationwide media and it has been treated as the typical rural accent in Japanese popular culture.

Phonetics

A notable linguistic feature of the Tōhoku dialect is its neutralization of the high vowels "i" and "u", so that the words sushi, susu, and shishi are rendered homophonous, where they would have been distinct in other dialects. In light of this, Tōhoku dialect is sometimes referred to as Zūzū-ben. The vowels tend to be neutralized to in Northern Tohoku dialect and in Southern Tohoku dialect.
In addition, all unvoiced stops become voiced intervocalically, rendering the pronunciation of the word kato as. However, unlike the high-vowel neutralization, this does not result in new homophones, as all voiced stops are prenasalized, meaning that the word kado is pronounced. This is particularly noticeable with, which is nasalized fully to with the stop of the hard "g" almost entirely lost, so that ichigo 'strawberry' is pronounced. Standard Japanese can do this with too, but not with the other stops.
This distribution of medial voicing and prenasalization is thought to be a conservative pronunciation reflecting the original Old Japanese state.

Grammar

In grammar, a volitional and presumptive suffix -be or -ppe is widely used in the region. It is a transformation of -beki, a conjugated form of an archaic suffix -beshi. Since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, a slogan Ganbappe! has often been used in the disaster area.
A directional particle sa is also widely used in the region. It is a transformation of sama and almost equivalent to standard ni or e. A Muromachi period proverb "Kyō e, Tsukushi ni, Bandō sa" says that the particle sa was once widely used in Kanto region.

Sub-dialects

The Tōhoku dialects can be broken down geographically and by former han domains:
In addition, the Eastern Kantō dialects and the coastal dialects of Hokkaidō have many Tōhoku features.